A woman died while trying to protect her son from a roof that collapsed during a storm in the Turkish city of Istanbul on Monday.

Both the woman and her son were buried under the roof, the state broadcaster TRT reported.

While the woman died at the scene, the child is now being treated in hospital, it said.

According to TRT, eyewitnesses described how the mother threw her body over the child in an attempt to protect him at the very last moment before the roof came down.

Damage to houses and other incidents of injury were also reported elsewhere in Istanbul and across Turkey as a whole.

In the municipality of Catalca, on the outskirts of Istanbul, a clock tower was felled by the strong winds, according to the report.

The Bosporus strait was closed to shipping by the coastguard on Monday afternoon, and at least one internal passenger flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Ankara as weather conditions deteriorated.

The Turkish meteorological service warned of more heavy rain and winds of up to 100 kilometres per hour to come in western and central Turkey later on Monday. (dpa/NAN)